1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a cover for a window well associated with a window of a building and more specifically concerns a window well cover that can be attached to many different sizes and shapes of window wells so that the window well can be opened for access as desired.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of window wells surrounding the exterior of below grade windows, such as a window in the basement wall of a building is widely known. Normally, such windows are near the upper side of the basement wall but are either partly or wholly below grade. To protect the window from backfill and other damage and to allow sunlight to be exposed to the window, it is customary for a window well to be placed around the full exterior of the window.
To comply with safety regulations concerning ingress and egress from below grade windows and to increase the amount of sunlight that is allowed therethrough, a trend has developed of providing relatively large window wells surrounding such windows. Although such enlarged construction has many advantages, it also has the disadvantages of allowing for rubbish and other materials to collect in the window well areas and in times of intense rain can serve as a collecting basin for unwanted amounts of moisture.
To lessen the above noted disadvantages, it is known in the art to provide window well covers for below grade windows and a variety of different types of embodiments of such covers have previously been utilized. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,455 issued to Veazey discloses a window well cover that includes an extruded metal frame for receiving the perimeter portions of a plastic glazing sheet to serve as a cover member for a window well. Although such window well structure appears to provide a relatively lightweight cover apparatus for a window well, the specific structure it employs appears to be unnecessarily complicated and relatively expensive to manufacture. The present invention provides an improved structure for a window well cover apparatus that is more universal in fitting different sizes and shapes of window wells and avoids the foregoing disadvantages of prior art window well covers.